Under Her Skin(12)
Author: Jeaniene Frost

Nathan clenched his jaw, looked through the front windshield again. "You’re calm enough now."

And barely holding onto that calm. Her senses were filled with blood, with Nathan. "Trust me," she said softly. "That’s a good thing."

* * *

Even waking her at two in the morning didn’t trip Aunt Letty up. Telling her about Emma’s run-in with a serial killer didn’t either, but Emma hadn’t expected it to. No, not Aunt Letty. Her only reaction was one similar to the reaction she gave the first time Emma had changed into a wolf in front of her: she stared at Emma with eyes like steel, but with softly pursed lips.

Then she’d ordered Emma to sit at the kitchen table while she collected her first aid supplies from the pantry. Her white hair was braided for sleep; beneath the mint green terry-cloth robe, Emma knew there would be a sprigged flannel nightgown with a bit of lace at the hem. Her cool fingers were all wrinkles and knuckles, gentle as she cleaned the wound.

"So, young man," she said to Nathan as she unwrapped a bandage, "you’re moving us to your place because you’re worried he’ll come after my Emma."

"Yes, Miss Letty," Nathan said from the kitchen entrance. If he’d had his hat, Emma thought, it’d have been between his hands. Before retiring last year, her aunt had been both teacher and nurse at the tiny Pine Bluffs high school. Emma hadn’t met anyone in town below the age of fifty who didn’t speak to Letty with the same deference that Nathan did.

"And what did Emma say to that?"

"She didn’t argue."

Letty arched her white eyebrows. "Well, isn’t that something?" she murmured. "I thought for sure Emma would have said she’d handle any threat on her own."

"I bit him," Emma said quietly, her gaze locked with her aunt’s. "He’s dangerous—and going to get worse."

"Then it seems to me that, before things get worse, you’ve got some explaining to do." Letty straightened up. "Maybe you can get started on that while I pack."

Emma sighed, and watched Nathan step aside to let her aunt pass into the hallway. Of course Letty was right. But knowing was easier than doing. Knowing was always easier than doing.

But that was why she’d come back, wasn’t it? There were things to do, and to explain.

She just hadn’t realized she’d be starting this early.

"You might as well change now, too," Nathan said, his deference going as easily as it had come. His fear had passed, too. And his anger. In their place was speculation. His eyes narrowed as he assessed her from head to toe. "I’ll need your clothes as evidence. It’s unlikely that you’ll be getting them back."

"That’s fine." Emma hooked her fingers beneath the hem of the blood-stained sweater, and paused. "You’re going to watch?"

"I will if you take them off here where I can see you."

In answer, she pulled the sweater over her head. He’d been teasing her, she knew. But now his smile froze in place as Emma took off her t-shirt and threw it on top of her sweater. Then she began to shimmy out of her jeans.

She heard his approach, the racing of his heartbeat. His hands flattened on the table on either side of her hips, closing her in with his wide shoulders and tall frame. "Stop it, Emma."

The growl rumbling up from her chest stole her response. She kicked the jeans free of her feet, and stood in front of him in her bra and panties.

Nathan’s face darkened; his breathing deepened. "We got along before, pretending we could just be friends. I can’t do that now, not after that phone call, not after hearing you scream and not knowing—" He bit off his words. His throat worked and he leaned in, forcing her back against the table. "So you should think a little before stripping off in front of me."

Off balance, she grabbed onto his biceps to steady herself. "I’ve thought more than a little. I’ve been thinking about you for five years."

"Not hard enough, obviously." He backed out of her grip. "Because for five years, you’ve been up in Seattle."

She crossed her arms over the scratchy lace of her bra. "You haven’t exactly been burning up the highway between here and there."

He stared at her for a long moment before he turned toward the door, shaking his head. "You always ask the one question I don’t have an answer to."

"I didn’t ask anything."

"Yes, you did. Which suitcase do you need?"

She blinked. "The small one."

She listened to the heavy tread of his footsteps on the front porch, then to the snow crunching beneath his boots as he walked to the truck.

Winter in Pine Bluffs. Emma knew the summers better. When she was sixteen, her mother had sent her to stay with Letty over summer vacation, arguing that time away from the city would do her good. Emma had chosen to come the next six years. Nathan had only been part of the reason, because her mother had been right—time in Pine Bluffs had done her good. She loved the forests with their thick mats of pine needles over red earth, loved the town with its three stoplights and not a single chain restaurant.

So she’d visited, first in high school and then throughout college, fully intending to make it a permanent move after she’d earned her degree. But she’d changed her plans, that last summer.

Apparently Nathan had been thinking of that summer too, and the hike they’d taken around the lake, the tension simmering between them. "Your leg didn’t scar," he said, setting her case on the table.

Automatically, Emma glanced down at her right calf. Smooth skin stretched over muscle that, five years ago, had been mangled, bleeding. "It turned me into a werewolf. So I heal faster now."

His short burst of laughter was exactly what she’d expected. No, she couldn’t tell him straight out. She’d have to prepare him, so that he could more easily accept the unbelievable. After dropping Aunt Letty and Emma at his house, Nathan would have to return the highway and help Osborne go over the scene at the Jeep. It would be a simple thing to follow him in wolf form and offer help…and then hope he didn’t shoot her, as he had the werewolf who’d attacked her.

A lead bullet between the eyes killed a werewolf just as easily as it did a man; unfortunately, death hadn’t changed him back to his human form. If it had, she might have known what was happening to her. She might have known where the cravings came from, and why she’d woken up naked in the woods just outside Nathan’s bedroom window.

But she’d probably have been just as frightened, and run just as fast.

"Your Jeep was packed full," he said, and she could feel his gaze on her as she unzipped her suitcase. "Are you staying a while?"